From a boat building background comes a new camper body for pick-ups
IN the States they call them truck campers or demountables, while in the UK the most recognised term is dismountable. They are effectively a caravan body that slides into the bed of a pick-up truck and is removable, so you can use the truck as a workhorse during the week. Or you might simply leave the body behind on a campsite, using the pick-up as a car – so, using it like a caravan but without the hassle of towing. And, of course, without the camper body on board, the truck is lower, shorter (usually), lighter and more fuel efficient.
There have been a number of dismountables available on the UK market over the years, including respected and long-established German brands, Bimobil and Tischer, as well as British rivals. Unlike in the USA, however, where there is huge demand for these units, they’ve always been a small part of the leisure market here. That hasn’t stopped new arrivals, though, the latest of which is Renegade Campers.
A small family-run business, it specialises in GRP mouldings, something that can be instantly seen in the unusual design of its body – a complex design that simply wouldn’t be possible with conventional motorhome construction. Indeed, you can see the influence of Renegade’s sister company, Aqua-Marine Services, which builds vessels for wind farms, surveying, diving and fishing. Now, alongside boat building, it has developed the Renegade, which it launched in February at the NEC.
Designed to suit most modern one-tonne pick-up trucks (Toyota Hilux, Isuzu D-Max, etc), the Renegade body is 4.45m from bow to stern (boating parlance seems appropriate here!) and around 2.70m high when mounted on the truck. The camper requires a truck bed length of 1.33m (plus the tailgate) and a width of 1.47m. Two skids are fitted in the bed to ease mounting and dismounting the camper, but no further modifications are carried out to the pick-up and the whole process of changing from camper to truck, or vice versa, is said to only take around half an hour. The tailgate can be left on the truck when the body is added.
Depending on spec, the camper weighs approximately 480kg. So, taking an Isuzu D-Max V-Cross automatic as an example, you’d still have 590kg payload in the truck. The body costs from £20,000 fully fitted out and the aforementioned pick-up is currently £35,514 (excluding VAT), so this could still work out cheaper than a typical campervan, especially if you fit the body to a used pick-up (or already
